


The Enduring Nature of Regret and Hope: My love letter to Sheriff Graham Humbert

by sachantquiladesailes_98



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, I love this show, Implied Relationships, So yeah, Sorry Not Sorry, Why is tagging so hard?, Will probably never be, an acknowledgement of how awesome Graham was, and Graham is dead, and we all kinda forgot, cause he was awesome, especially this man, references to other characters - Freeform, so I'm reminding us, still not over his death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 10:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sachantquiladesailes_98/pseuds/sachantquiladesailes_98
Summary: Ugh, what do I even say? I can't even begin to describe how much I love this character and how much I loved what they did with him and Emma. I was re watching season 1 recently and I was reminded of how much I loved him and how much he did impact Emma in such a short time. I understand that the plot has to keep moving and we don't have time to dwell on a character who didn't live past the first season. But I am not constrained by such concerns. And so, this was born. I hope you enjoy and let me know if you do/ that I am not alone in how great and underappreciated Graham is.





	The Enduring Nature of Regret and Hope: My love letter to Sheriff Graham Humbert

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, what do I even say? I can't even begin to describe how much I love this character and how much I loved what they did with him and Emma. I was re watching season 1 recently and I was reminded of how much I loved him and how much he did impact Emma in such a short time. I understand that the plot has to keep moving and we don't have time to dwell on a character who didn't live past the first season. But I am not constrained by such concerns. And so, this was born. I hope you enjoy and let me know if you do/ that I am not alone in how great and underappreciated Graham is.

It’s a quiet day for the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department. Which really just means that instead of giants terrorizing the town or an explicit attack from some new villain, one was no doubt off somewhere, giving the town a break while they planned their newest assault on it.

Until then, though, Emma had given David the afternoon off so that he could spend more time with Mary Margaret and the new Baby Neal- her _family_ she reminded herself. David- her _dad_ \- had made it clear that she was, of course, also welcome, but… she really needed to get around to tidying her office.

Her _dad_ had raised his eyebrows at her frankly terrible excuse, but he’d let it go, simply reminding her that she was welcome to join them for family dinner, and she loved him for it. He understood in a way that Mary Margaret- her _mother_ she mentally revised- didn’t that some days were easier than others. He still had nightmares of shattered mobiles and empty wardrobes.

She started her cleaning with her desk. There had been paperwork spilling out of the bottom drawer for as long as she had worked there and while it may have been an excuse originally, she was glad to finally have a chance to sift through it all. Most of it is drunk and disorderlies for Leroy. There are also some noise complaints about Granny and Ruby, a disturbingly vague account of everything that happened with Kurt and Owen Flynn back at the inception of the town, a few missing reports for Henry that she hadn’t known about... and her own arrest report shoved up on its side against the back of the bottom drawer.

It’s a perfectly standard report. Her photo is nothing short of awful and her personal information is obviously quite sparse, but it’s still a largely unremarkable report.

What catches her attention is the half of a sticky note stuck to the top right corner of it. Scribbled on it in what remains some of the worst writing she’s ever seen are two words: possible hire. This is followed by about six question marks and then a dash underneath it with: “Regina…” after it.

She wants to laugh but it comes out as a sob.

Storybrooke is her home now; she has a family and friends and a place to fit into. But she can still remember the days of lonely solitude, can still remember the shock at being offered a place here, can still remember the warmth that spread through her veins when she realized Graham was serious in his offer.

She recalls his sincere excitement and welcome on her first day, the way he’d awkwardly and largely ineffectually stood up to Regina at the mine, how _he_ was the one to catch her when she came out of the shaft, the brief pressure of his hand on her shoulder when Regina shoved her away, and the way he’d taken her out for a drink at the end of the day. If she’s quiet, she can almost hear his earnest words, his hope that she hadn’t been scared off by her first day.

No matter what happened between them and no matter how safe and welcome and respected she feels now, the fact remains that he was one of the first to bring her into the town, to give her a reason to stay somewhere, to believe her capable of more than she was.

And he’d apparently thought this since the second day, while she’d stood in front of him for her mug shots. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous and rare and wonderful, and so her laugh comes out as a sob.

Just a single, gasping cry that echoes around the empty station. A brief outburst of regret for what could have been, for the man that he was (flaws and all), for the way her heart had flared awake again under his gentle care of her bruised face, for the certainty that she really could have fallen for him.

And she can’t help but wonder if Regina really had killed Graham- unable to ignore the convenience of his death with the knowledge that she has now. She will never ask her, though. For one thing, what would be the point? For another, she doesn’t think she actually wants to know the answer.

So instead, she files the reports away, grabs her jacket off the back of her chair, and rushes off. If she hurries, she might be able to see if Killian would be willing to come to family dinner with her.

 

Regina tells her anyway.

It was on the evening of the day that Robin had crossed the town line with Marian. Emma had found Regina slumped on a bench in the woods, the bottle in her hand looking suspiciously like Killian’s missing rum. Emma had been debating whether she should sneak away or not, when Regina had lifted her head and glared at her.

“I murdered Graham, you know. I squeezed his heart into dust and I was absolutely _delighted_ to learn that he’d died in your arms…. Just in case you were feeling sorry for me.”

She is physically taken aback by the venom in Regina’s voice and for a moment, she’s back on that dirty station floor, desperately shaking Graham’s still-warm body, the heart she’d felt just hours before now silent beneath her palms, yet still bending over him as she screams his name, praying for a stream of air that she knows isn’t there.

But just as suddenly, she’s back in the darkening, windy forest, and the guarded way Regina is holding herself, the self-hatred leaking into her expression, the guilt as well as the certainty that she must be to blame for her pain choking the life from the air around her… these things are as identifiable to Emma as Henry’s smiles have become.

So she doesn’t leave. She sinks down beside Regina onto the cold wood and pries the rum from her hands to take a quick gulp of some liquid courage.

“Yeah... I think somehow I already knew that.”

Regina scoffs, but it’s watery, and the next instant she’s digging her fingers into her tear ducts with a ferocity in her devastation that only Regina could manage to convey. Emma reaches out a hand to rest on her shoulder, but she shakes it off angrily. “You can leave anytime, Miss Swan,” she spits out, snatching the rum back and turning firmly away from Emma.

Emma thinks again of shaking Graham’s warm body, she thinks of the relieved thanks he’d breathed before he’d stepped forward to kiss her again, she thinks of Regina’s grief over his death that had managed to be somehow smug and accusatory at the same time, she thinks of Regina taking the sheriff’s badge from her hand and her insistence that Emma had not earned the right to wear it….

She thinks of the way her dad always cradles her head when he hugs her as if she is a child, she thinks of the way her mom still refuses to talk of the years Emma had spent growing up alone, she thinks of her own buried box of memories from the foster homes she has neither the heart to go through nor throw away, she thinks of Killian waking up from nightmares of Gold ripping out _her_ heart before him, she thinks of Gold asking her for her swan necklace, his voice rough as he admits that he has nothing of his own to remember Neal by.

She thinks of Henry- her bright, brave boy who cares so much and so fiercely that it still shocks Emma into silence sometimes. Henry, who had gathered up all the pieces of the torn storybook page that he could find, as reverently as if they were priceless rubies, as carefully as if it was an ancient manuscript. Henry, who had sealed them up in a Ziploc, which he’d placed in a box he’s calling Operation Mongoose Part 2. Henry, who looked at the world like it was a puzzle to be solved and like he had the power to solve it. Henry, who made them all believe that maybe, just maybe, he did.

She thinks of Lily’s eyes, haunted and familiar, that had widened in horror when Emma shook her off for the last time. She thinks of Regina’s eyes, haunted and familiar, tightly screwed up against the cold wind of a cold world, determined to draw the tears from her eyes in any way that it can.

She thinks of regret. She thinks of guilt. She thinks of friendship, and forgiveness, and hope, and Graham’s crooked, sincere smile. She thinks of how much she has learned and grown and healed in this podunk town in the middle of Maine.

She’s not sure how long she’s been sitting on the cold bench, experiencing this revelation, but it’s long enough that when Regina turns back around, she seems genuinely surprised to see Emma still sitting there.

“I’m not gonna let you push me away,” Emma says, brusquely and with a bit of a snap in her tone (because she’s healed and grown, but she’s still Emma).

Regina doesn’t say anything in response, but this time, when Emma rests a hand on her shoulder, she lets her.

Emma thinks of accepting Graham’s proffered business card and second chance, and decides that this is a good start.

 


End file.
